The spectacular contrail could easily be seen up in Los Angeles, but who launched this missile and why, remain a mystery for now.

The magnificent images were captured from the KCBS chopper around 5pm. The location of the missile was described as west of Los Angeles, north of Catalina Island, and approximately 35 miles out to sea.

A Navy spokesperson tells News 8, this wasn't its missile. He said there was no Navy activity reported in that part of the region.

On Friday, November 5, Vandenberg Air Force Base launched a Delta II rocket, carrying the Thales Alenia Space-Italia COSMO SkyMed satellite, but a sergeant at the base tells News 8, there have been no launches since then.

News 8 showed the video to Robert Ellsworth, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and a former Deputy Secretary of Defense.

He said it didn't appear to be a Tomahawk missile and said it would be safest to wait for definitive answers to come from the military.

Based on pure speculation, however, Ambassador Ellsworth said, with President Obama in Asia, perhaps this could have been a show of our military muscle.

"It could be a test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from an underwater submarine, to demonstrate mainly to Asia, that we can do that," he said, stressing that it was just a theory.